Skundavisk
Shoundavish (sh.: skundavisk, /ʃyndaβɪʃ/) is a West-Germanic language spoken in Shoundafland, a Northern Europe country located between Germany, Poland and Denmark. It evolved from the Old Saxon dialects that were spoken in the Sleswijk and Holtsat (German Schleswig and Holstein) in the early Middle Ages, and is thus closely related to English, Dutch, Low Saxon, Frisian and (High) German. Because of the huge influence it exerced on the Scandinavian languages during the Middle Ages, Shoundavish bears many similarities with Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Reversely, Shoundavish underwent a slight North Germanic influence by contact with the Nordic countries, and which is reflected by the presence of Scandinavian loanwords in its vocabulary, especially from Old Norse and Early Modern Danish. Shoundavish didn't take part in the High German consonant shift, and is overall one of the most conservative Germanic languages regarding the consonants. Because of its preservation of the sounds "th" and "w", along with a large common vocabulary, Shoundavish is one of the closest languages to English. However, both languages underwent very different vowel shifts over time, which makes them sound quite different. Besides, while English borrowed many words from the Romance languages (especially French), the Shoundavish vocabulary remained mostly Germanic, and very few words were borrowed from non-Germanic sources. Therefore, words like "biology" or "litterature" are built using Germanic roots instead of Latin or Greek ones. While being very conservative in its phonology and lexicon, Shoundavish didn't preserve the complex grammar of Proto-Germanic, and the medieval case system has been reduced to scattered remnants in the modern language. Classification and Dialects Skundavisk belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Germanic languages. It bears many similarities with the Anglo-Frisian, Low Saxon and Low Franconian languages, which include English, Frisian, Low German and Dutch among others. There are seven dialects of Shoundavish: Sleswijksk, west Holtatisk, oost Holtsatisk, sunth Holtsatisk, west Mikelenborgisk, oost Mikelenborgisk and Seelandisk, all of which differ in grammar, phonology, vocabulary and syntax. The written standard is based on the oost Holtsatisk dialect, and is understood everywhere in Shoundafland. However, outside the region of East Holtsat, standard Shoundavish is rarely spoken, and the dialects are still widely used, unlike what happened in most West European countries. Origin The name Shoundavish comes from an old Germanic compound name:'' *skunduz habai'', litterally "fast way to the sea" (the word *habai ''is the genitive of ''*haba ''and is related to English "haven"), referring to the original homeland of the Shoundaves between the North and the Baltic Seas. The earliest stage of the language is Old Shoundavish, which emerged in the 6th century from North Sea Germanic dialects, near the original homeland of the Angles, the Saxons and the Frisians. At that time the language was, like the other early Germanic languages, highly inflected. The original four cases of Proto-Germanic were all preserved, but were quite simplified. By the 12th century the language had evolved significantly and was entering the Middle Shoundavish period, during which many vowels in unstressed syllables were reduced (ex. Old Shoundavish ''daga, sunno, friunds, drivan ''> Middle Shoundavish ''dag, sunne, friend, driven). The Middle Shoundavish vocabulary is quite close to that of Modern Shoundavish, but the pronunciation was different and the adjectives and articles were still inflected, like in Modern German. Middle Shoundavish was one of the main languages of the Hanseatic league, and had a huge impact on the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian), whose modern vocabulary contains around 30% of Shoundavish loanwords. By the 15th century, the dialects of Shoundavish had diverged quite a lot from each other, and each dialect developed its own distinct pholonogial and grammatical characteristics. The 16th century saw a drastic simplification of the grammar, all the cases disappeared (except the very formal genitive case which survived in the written language) and the use of the subjunctive mood declined. Several vowels shifted during this period, especially the long vowels which split into diphthongs or were significantly modified (ex. Middle Shoundavish driven /dri:βən''/, hus /hu:s/, stan /sta:n/ > Modern Shoundavish ''drijven /drɪj''βən/, hous /hows/, stån /sto:n/''). Since Sleswijk was under Danish rule during this time, Shoundavish borrowed a few words from Danish, and adopted a Scandinavian-looking orthography using the letters å, æ, ø and y. Since then, the language didn't undergo any significant change, therefore the 17th century texts almost don't differ with actual texts in style, grammar and vocabulary. While the other Germanic languages were adopting many new scientific and technical words, which were coined from Latin and Greek roots, Shoundavish coined its own scientific vocabulary using Germanic roots. For example, words like biology, physics or gene are translated as lijfkunthe, byrdkunthe ''and ''erfthe (literally "life-knowledge", "nature-knowledge" and "heritage" with a "-the" suffix related to English "-th"). It is therefore possible to write a Shoundavish text dealing with science or technology without any loanword from Latin or Greek, as it is the case in Icelandic. Phonology Consonants Vowels Phonotactics /g/+/h/=/x/ or /ɣ/ /n/+/g/=/ŋ/ /s/+k/=/ʃ/ /t/+/h/=/θ/ or /ð/ /h/+/w/=/ʍ/ Writing System Grammar The grammar of Shoundavish is quite close to that of German, Dutch and early Middle English. The typically Germanic concepts such as strong and weak verbs, modal verbs and umlaut are present in the language. Nouns 'Genders and articles' There are three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter. As the nouns maintained their original Proto-Germanic genders, they mostly have the same gender as their German cognates. Like in English, there are two types of articles that can precede a noun: the definite and the indefinite articles. The table below shows the different articles for each gender and number: As it can be seen, the plural forms are common for all genders. The masculine and feminine share the same definite article, while the masculine and the neuter share the same indefinite article. Like most Germanic languages, Shoundavish has no plural indefinite article. Example: Definite article: the man=the mann (masculine singular) the woman=the frawe (feminine singular) the house=thet hous (neuter singular) the men=the mænne (plural) Indefinite article: a man=een mann (masculine singular) a woman=eene frawe (feminine singular) a house=een hous (neuter singular) men=mænne (plural) Unlike German, Shoundavish has no cases, the articles don't change according to grammatical function in the sentence: Example: The man has seen a dog.=The mann hat een hund geseen. I saw a man in the street.=Ik så een mann in the stråte. He sold a dog to the man.=Hi sålde een hund to the mann. Plural of nouns There are various ways to form the plural in Shoundavish, all of which go back to the Proto-Germanic noun classes: 1. plural in -s: only masculine nouns (from the "-az" class of Proto-Germanic) weg-wegs (=way-ways), dag-dags (=day-days), arm-arms (=arm-arms), wagen-wagens (=car-cars) 2. plural in -r: only feminine nouns (from the "-o" class of Proto-Germanic) luve-luver (=love-loves), nase-naser (=nose-noses), stråte-stråter (=street-streets), stunde-stunder (=hour-hours) 3a. Plural ending in -e without umlaut (from a merging of the "-a" class of Proto-Germanic, which contained only neuter nouns, and the "-iz" class, where the three genders were present) hous-house (=house-houses), been-beene (=leg-legs), deel-deele (=part, parts), sted-stede (=place-places), 3b. Plural ending in -e with umlaut (from a merging of the consonant class of Proto-Germanic and a part of the neuter nouns "-a" class through analogy) jår-jære (=year-years), mann-mænne (=man-men), foot-føte (=foot-feet), mous-myse (=mouse-mice) 4. Plural ending in -n (from a merger of various "-n" classes of Proto-Germanic, here again all genders may be found) frawe-frawen (=woman-women), ooge-oogen (=eye-eyes), oore-ooren (=ear-ears), sterne-sternen (=star-stars) 5. Plural ending in -ere, only neuter nouns (from the "-z" class of Proto-Germanic) Verbs There are five classes of verbs in Shoundavish, all of which go back to the older Proto-Germanic classes: the weak verbs, the strong verbs, the mixed verbs, the modal verbs and the irregular verbs. There are only two simple tenses: present and past, but like in English there are various compound tenses using auxillary verbs, including a present perfect, which is formed using the auxillary verbs haven (=have) and wesen (=be) with the past participle. 'Weak verbs' It is the most common class of verbs, and is the only productive class, therefore a newly created verb is generally weak. The endings of the simple present tense are very similar to their German equivalents. Example: maken (=make) ik make=I make thou makst=you make (sing., cf archaic English thou makest) hi, si, hit makt=he, she it makes wi maken=we make ji makt=you make (plu., cf archaic English ye make) si, Si maken=they, you (formal) make The weak verbs form their simple past by adding a dental suffix to their roots, generally "t" or "d" depending on the preceding consonant, which is analogous to the English suffix "-ed", which is always spelled with a "d" but may either be pronouned with a "d" or a "t" sound. Here are the rules to choose the right consonant: root ending in g, j, l, m, n, r, w: -de (ex. hiwen-hiwde=form-formed) root ending in gh, k, kk, p, s, sk: -te (ex. maken-makte=make-made) root ending in d, gg, mm, rr, th, v: -ede (ex. grynden-gryndede=found-founded) root ending in t: -ete (ex. haten-hatete=hate-hated) The endings of the simple past tense are mostly the same as in the present tense. Example: maken (=make) ik makte=I made thou maktest=you made (sing.) hi, si, hit makte=he, she it made wi makten=we made ji maktet=you made (plu.) si, Si makten=they, you (formal) made The past participle of a weak verb is formed by adding the prefix ge- to the past form without the final -e. Example: gemakt=made (participle) The past participle is required to form the present perfect form. Example: hi hat gemakt=he has made 'Strong verbs' Like every Germanic language, Shoundavish has a strong verb class, which consists of the oldest verbs of the language. In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is a verb that forms its past forms through vowel alternation (or ablaut) instead of using a dental suffix (ex. English drive-drove-driven). This class is no longer productive, which means that no newly formed verb can be strong. The Shoundavish strong verbs are basically the same as in German, and are divided in seven subclasses that follow quite regular patterns to form their past forms. The following table displays the various patterns of the Shoundavish strong verbs. Several features can be noticed in this table. First, the vowel of the root may change at the present tense. This happens only for the 2nd and 3rd persons, and is similar to what happens in German. More over, unlike English, but like Dutch and German, the past participle of strong verbs always end in "-en" (it used to be the case in English, but several verbs lost their "-en" ending over time, while others kept it). As for the conjugation, the endings are basically the same as for the weak verbs: Example: drijven (=drive) ik dreef=I drove thou dreefst=you drove (sing.) hi, si, hit dreef=he, she, it drove wi dreeven=we drove ji dreeft=you drove si, Si dreeven=they, you (formal) drove Note that when the voiced letter "v" of the root comes in contact with "-st" or "-t", it shifts to its voiceless counterpart "f". Unlike English which only uses the auxillary "have" to form the present perfect, Shoundavish may also use the verb "wesen". This only concerns the stative verbs like "wesen" (="be") and "werthen" (="become) and verbs that can't have a direct object, like "fallen" (="fall") or "kommen" (="come"). Similar rules exist in German and French, among others. Example: ik im gekommen=I have come hi is geworden=he has become 'Mixed verbs' This class consists mainly of descendants of Proto-Germanic weak verbs ending in "-jan". The "j" caused i-mutation of the preceding vowel in the present form, but in the past form the original vowel remained. This is why the verbs of this class are called mixed verbs, they combine the characteristics of weak verbs (dental suffix in the past forms) and strong verbs (vowel alternation). In some cases the vowel alternation is only reflected in a difference of vowel length. This class also exists in English, and comprises verbs such as think-thought-thought, sell-sold-sold or feel-felt-felt. Examples: Here are some very frequent mixed verbs. Their pattern often closely resembles that of English bringen-braghte-gebraght=bring-brought-brought bygen-bughte-gebught=buy-bought-bought kennen-kande-gekand=know (cf Scottish English "ken") leggen-lagde-gelagd=lay-laid-laid møten-motte-gemot=meet-met-met reeken-reghte-gereght=reach-reached-reached rennen-rande-gerand=run-ran-run segen-sagde-gesagd=say-said-said sellen-sålde-gesåld=sell-sold-sold senden-sandte-gesandt=send-sent-sent setten-satte-gesat=set-set-set søken-soghte-gesoght=seek-sought-sought spreeden-spredde-gespred=spread-spread-spread stellen-stålde-geståld=put-put-put (cf Scottish English "stell") tellen-tålde-getåld=count, tell thenken-thaghte-gethaght=think-thought-thought 'Modal verbs' This is a quite small category, as in English. The verbs of this class all descend from the preterit-present class of Proto-Germanic, that is verbs whose present conjugation looks like a strong preterit conjugation (no "-e" ending at the 1st person singular and no "-t" ending at the 3rd person singular). This is reflected in English by the absence of the "-s" ending for the modal verbs "can", "may", "will" or "shall". As in English, the Shoundavish modal verbs usually don't have a past participle, except the verb "witen" (=know). These verbs mostly serve as auxillary verbs and are used to express different mood and, as it will be seen further, tenses (future and conditional). Example: ik kann skundavisk spreken=I can speak Shoundavish thou mootst gån=you must go hi mag lat ankommen=he may arrive late wi skullen hin besøken=we should visit him (cf English "beseech") ji thurft hier røken=you may smoke here (it is permitted, cf Middle English "tharf") Si willen thig møten=they want to meet you The verb "willen" is used in the sense of "want", even if there is no infinitive after it: ik will een niw wagen=I want a new car 'Irregular verbs' This last category consists only of six verbs. These verbs are sometimes suppletive, which means that their forms descend from different Proto-Germanic verbs that merged together. For example, the English verb "go" is suppletive, because its simple past "went" originated from another verb. The table below shows the conjugation of the 6 irregular verbs of this class: Notice that the Shoundavish irregular verbs correspound to highly irregular verbs in English, these verbs are indeed cognates. In the present tense, the English verb "be" has two translations: "wesen" and "beun". "Beun" is only used to form the passive voice (followed by the past participle) and can never be used alone, whereas "wesen" translates "be" in all other cases. Example: hi biet geluved=he is loved ik im åld=I am old As the two verbs share the same past forms, they are indistinct in the past. Example: hi was een seer skøn geskenk gegeven=he was given a very nice present si was seer blijth=she was very happy Of course, the root "beun" shares the same origin as English "be", but the two languages developped totally different usage of this ancient Germanic verb, whose original meaning was "become". 'Compound tenses' Like all the other Germanic languages, Shoundavish has a lot of compound tenses, especially to express progressive aspect (like in English) but also the future. There are two progressive tenses: the present progressive and the past progressive. Both require a present participle, which is formed by adding the suffix "-end" to the root of the verb. Unlike English, these tenses are facultative and are only used to emphathise the progressive aspect. Thus the sentence "hi løpt in the stråte" may either mean "he walks in the street" or "he is walking in the street", whereas in English the simple present can never be understood with a progressive aspect. The future is constructed with the verbs "willen" and "skullen", which is similar to the English constructions with "will" and "shall", although the meanings are slightly different. The plue perfect is constructed in a similar way to English, except that, like for the present perfect, some verbs require the auxillary "wesen" instead of "haven". Present progressive: "wesen"+present participle Example: ik im loopend=I am walking Past progressive: "wesen" in the simple past+present participle Example: hi was slåpend=he was sleeping Plue perfect: "wesen" in the simple past+past participle Example: si hadden gefunden=they had found Future: "willen" (with a meaning of will) or "skullen" (with a meaning of duty)+infinitive Examples: ik will thar gån=I will go there (because I want it) ik skall thar gån=I will go there (because I have to do it) 'Subjunctive' The subjunctive mood is expressed in Shoundavish by applying mostly the same rules as in German and Old English: Present subjunctive: All the endings are the same as the simple present, except at the 3rd person singular for which the "-t" ending is replaced by an "-e". Thise tense is used to express hypothetical or uncertain actions like sentences reported by a journalist. This tense is quite rare and can be replaced by the simple present, as in English. Examples: ik fortherde, that hi um 8:00 ankomme=I required that he arrive at 8:00 (note that English also uses a subjunctive form, which is marked by the absence of the "-s" ending) the kyning komme um 8:00 an=the king will arrive at 8:00 (according to some sources, but it's not certain) Past subjunctive: The past subjunctive is far more useful, and it is used to express the conditional mood. As in German, there are two ways to form the past subjunctive, through vowel alternation (ablaut) and with an auxillary. The strong verbs form their past subjunctive by applying these vowel changes (which historically correspound to umlaut), and by adding a final "-e": class 1: dreef-dreeve class 2: koos-køse class 3: sang-sænge class 4: sprak-spræke class 5: gaf-gæve class 6: took-tøke class 7: fell-felle The subjunctive forms of the weak verbs are however completely identical to their simple past form (ex. "hi makte"="he made" or "he would make"). Only context indicates which form it is (like the English "could" which is both the past tense and conditional of the verb "can"). The mixed verbs form their subjunctive following the same rule as the strong verbs, the only difference being that no extra "-e" is added because the past form of these verbs already have an "-e" ending. (ex. "hi thaghte"="he thought", "hi thæghte"="he would think"). As for the weak verbs, some mixed verbs have the same form for both their simple past and past subjunctive (ex. "hi reghte"="he reached" or "he would reach"). the modal verbs use quite irregular ways to form their past subjunctive forms: konde-kynde (=conditional "could") moste-møste (="would have to") moghte-myghte (="might") skolde-skylde (="should") thorfte-thyrfte (="would need") wolde-wolde (="would" or "would like to") wiste-wiste (="would know) The irregular verbs form their subjunctive using the same rules as the strong verbs, that is, through umlaut: was-wære (="were" or "would be") deed-deede (="would do") hadde-hædde (="had" or "would have") ging-ginge (="would go") stod-støde (="would stand") To avoid ambiguity (when the simple past and past subjunctive are indistinct), the verbs "wolde" and "skylde" can be used in a similar way to the conditional use of "would" and "should" in English. The differences in meaning between both auxillary are more or less the same as in English, with "skylde" being more associated with moral duty. Example: ik wolde reeken=I would reach (if I wanted) ik skylde reeken=I should reach Adjectives Inflection Like in English, the Shoundavish adjectives are invariable if they follow a stative verb. Example: the mann is åld=the man is old the frawe is åld=the woman is old However, the adjectives agree with the noun that they qualify if both are part of a nominal group. The mark of the adjective depends on the determiner that precede the noun: if the determiner is a definite article, a demontrative adjective or a possessive adjective, the adjective takes "-e" in the singular and "-en" in the plural. In all other cases (including indefinite articles, possessive pronouns etc...), it takes no mark in the masculine and neuter singular, and "-e" in the feminine singular and plural. This rule may seem random, but in fact it is a remnant of the older case system and especially the notion of strong and weak declension (still present in Modern German). Example: the ålde mann=the old man the ålde frawe=the old woman thet ålde hous=the old house the ålden mænne=the old men een åld mann=an old man eene ålde frawe=an old woman een åld hous=an old house ålde mænne=old men Comparative and superlative forms The comparative and superlative forms of Shoundavish are generally formed by using the same rules as the other Germanic languages, including English. The short adjectives (one syllable) and the adjectives ending in "-lijk" and "-ig" form their comparative by adding the suffix "-er" and their superlative by adding the suffix "-est". Example: heet-heeter-heetest=hot-hotter-hottest wirklijk-wirklijker-wirklijkest=real-more real-most real The long adjectives (including all the participles) form their comparative with "meer" and their superlative with "meest" (correspounding to English "more" and "most). Example: bekand-meer bekand-meest bekand=famous-more famous-most famous Like in English, the basic adjectives "good" and "boos" (="bad") have irregular forms, which come from now extinct Proto-Germanic adjectives: good-beter-best=good-better-best boos-wers-werst=bad-worse-worst The same umlaut phenomenon as in German can be observed for short adjectives whose vowel is "a", "å", "eu", "o", "oo", "ou", or "u". These forms are not considered irregular since the umlaut is systematically applied on the vowel (sometimes it is facultative, mostly for less frequent adjectives). Examples: lat-læter-lætest=late-later-latest åld-ælder-ældest=old-older-oldest (cf English dual forms "elder" and "eldest") deup-dieper-diepest=deep-deeper-deepest skort-skørter-skørtest=short-shorter-shortest groot-grøter-grøtest=great-greater-greatest foul-fyler-fylest=dirty-dirtier-dirtiest (cf less common English "foul") jung-jynger-jyngest=young-younger-youngest Pronouns While Shoundavish doesn't distinguish grammatical cases for nouns and adjectives anymore, it still has 4 distinct cases for pronouns: subject, direct object, possessive and indirect object. The following table shows the different pronouns: Subject: Direct object: Possessive: Indirect object: Example: Note that some verbs like "segen" (="say"), "helpen" (="help") or "geven" (="give") take an indirect object although no preposition is used. ik helpe thir=I help you hi segt mir=he tells me wi gaven hir=we gave her Syntax Generally, Shoundavish follows the same syntactic rules as German. Therefore, the word order of simple sentences (with one verbal form) is SVO, but if there is an adverb at the beginning of the sentence, the verb must follow at the second position (it used to be the case in English, hence some sentences like "yesterday went he" in Middle English texts). This syntax is called V2. Example: hi wæskt his wagen=he washes his car (or "he is washing his car") todag wæskt hi his wagen=today he is washing his car However, when there are two verbs in the sentence, the conjugated verb comes at the second position, while the participle or infitive goes at the end of the sentence. Example: hi is his wagen waskend=hi is washing his car hi hat his wagen gewasken=he has washed his car todag mag hi his wagen wasken=today he may wash his car In subordinate clauses the word order becomes SOV, which means that all the verbs go at the end of the clause, the conjugated one being always the last. Example: hi thenkt, that hit eene goode mynd is=he thinks that it is a good idea si sagde mir, that si to lat wesen mag=she told me that she may be late (note the indirect object pronoun "mir") Lexicon The Shoundavish vocabulary is Germanic by a vast majority. The main vocabulary comes from old northern dialects of West Germanic, and bears therefore many similarities with English, Frisian, Low German and Dutch. The lack of the High German consonant shift makes the word more distant to their German cognates, but they can still be easily identified by a German speaker. A handful of words of Scandinavian origin are present, due to contact with North Germanic languages, especially Danish. The language contains very few non-Germanic words. Only some very old Latin and Greek loanwords are present in the standard register, most of which were borrowed in Proto-Germanic times. A few words of Slavic origin can be found in the Eastern dialects, but these are not part of the standard language. The table below gives some basic Skundavisk vocabulary, with their equivalents in English: Example text This is the beginning of Galadriel's opening monologue from the film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: The werld hat forantherd. Ik føle hit in the water. Ik føle hit in the erthe. Ik røke hit in the luft. Mikel, thet eens was, biet forlosen, thee livet nou neen, the hit orinnert. Hit begann mid thet gesmith ther Grooten Rings. Three weren to the Elve gegeven; undødlijk, the wijsesten and reghtwærdigsten aller wesen. Seven to the Dwerg Herren, groote groovers and wryghten ther berghaller. And neun, neun rings weren to thet kynd ther Mænne geskenkt, the boven allt elles maght girnden. Thee weren mid thise rings the stærkthe and wille gebunden, elk kynd te stieren. Meden si weren alle gedrogen, for that een anther ring gemakt was. In thet land af Mordor, in the fyre thes Orlagbergs, smithede the Mørke Herr Sauron, geheemlijk, een overheersend Ring, um the antheren te stieren. And in this ring goot hi hise grousamheed, his yvel and his wille, all lijf te overheersen. Een Ring, um hir alle te stieren. Category:Germanic conlangs